Bangkok at a Glance

Transportation in Bangkok

Bangkok's waterways are less crowded than its streets.

Living in Bangkok will be a unique experience for you. Indeed, Bangkok is a city of contrasts and diversity, which offers its expats lots of opportunities. If you are interested in living in Bangkok, you will find helpful advice on health care, education, transport, and more in this short guide.

Thai Driving License

If you are planning a longer stay, but think you cannot do without driving yourself, you need to get a Thai driving license from the Department of Land Transportation. (An International Driving Permit for foreign drivers in Thailand is valid for six months only.) For this purpose, you need to go to the head office (1032 Phahonyothin Road, Bangkok) or one of the local branches and bring along the following documents:

your valid passport with a non-immigrant visa
two passport photographs
medical certificate
proof of residence
your old license from home

Theoretically speaking, you must still attend a class on driving safely, a color-blindness test as well as a written and a practical driving exam. However, having an International Driving Permit may allow you to skip the last two steps. Your Thai driving license will be valid for one year. You must renew it after that.

Don’t forget to take out a car insurance policy that is as comprehensive as possible. Many other drivers in Thailand might not have any insurance at all, and you certainly don’t want to pay for any accident-related expenses from your own pocket.

Getting around

As we have mentioned before the traffic chaos in Bangkok does not show any signs of decreasing in the near future – quite the opposite. As a result of the city’s rapid demographic growth and urban expansion, Bangkok’s infrastructure, including the road network and public transport, is overburdened and does not live up to daily demand.

Driving around Bangkok is only recommended if you live in a location, e.g. in a provincial suburb, with a long commute and really bad public transport links. There are high import taxes on motor vehicles, and buying a new car of a well-known quality brand isn’t that cheap in Thailand, either.

While the roads in Bangkok are well maintained and most street signs are actually bilingual (i.e. in Thai and English), drivers – particularly motorcyclists – can be rather reckless. Furthermore, depending on your own country of origin, driving on the left side of the road might be unfamiliar and confusing to you.

Getting to and departing from Bangkok is relatively easy. Bangkok has two airports: the new Suvarnabhumi International Airport, about 30 km east of central Bangkok, as well as the old Don Muang Airport in the north. Due to the flooding, the latter, which now serves domestic flights, was, however, closed in October 2011 until further notice. In February 2012, some of the Thai airlines may start returning their domestic flights to Don Muang. Both airports are well connected to the city center, either with the Airport Link or by regular taxi services.

Public Transportation

Expatriates without a car usually prefer the Skytrain, the underground or the Airport Rail Link to get around in Central Bangkok. If your home or your destination is located close to the Chao Praya River or the Khlong Saen Saeb, you may also make use of an express boat service for part of the way.

Bangkok’s waterways are less crowded than its streets. Unfortunately, even all these services combined cover only a certain part of the city, not to mention the Bangkok Metropolitan Region, as you can see from a glance at this overview map.

Buses and Taxis

The bus network is vast, comprehensive and much cheaper than the Skytrain, but it’s also slow (due to buses getting stuck in traffic jams), crowded, and not always very comfortable. The cheapest buses, for example, are not air conditioned.

The bus lines and private fleets of mini-vans and mini-buses which link the suburbs and outskirts to the fast traffic nodes via the elevated expressways are very useful for expats who do not live in downtown Bangkok. The mini-vans in particular are often more comfortable than regular buses, and faster, too.

Last but not least, there’s always the possibility to call a cab, for instance, via a 24/7 call-a-taxi service such as Taxiradio (1681 in the Bangkok area). However, using taxis on a regular basis is anything but cheap and will fast increase your expenses for (relatively) quick and reliable transport in Bangkok.